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Harleen Gretzky added a comment - 29/Apr/08 09:08 PM
Duplicate of MISC-731, MISC-65, and MISC-71
Respectfully re-opened.
Issue is not a duplication of 731 or 65. Both these posts recommend giving group officers control over who receives group chat. That is a totally different concept than being able to send notices and chat to specific roles. 71 is similar in concept, so this may be a duplicate there. Still, #71 was initiated more than a year ago and apparently has not struck Linden Lab as being important. Perhaps the rewording of the concept presented in this post will catch their attention. This need is far more important than "features" we've seen added in the past year. I don't believe that LL does not think it is important, IMO, it is just that they do not want to add any group features that will strain the database further than groups already are doing.
Once they solve the basic database problems with groups, then we can get more than 25 groups, IM muting, group banning, and thing like this. In truth, I don't see how limiting a notice send or chat session is going to strain a database. Doing so seems to me to be a function of coding, not database issues. The database will remain the same. They would just need to add coding parameters. Example:
GROUP NOTICE That's not database strain, that's a coding feature that would simply NOT send such notice to folks if they're not in that role. The role of course would default to the EVERYONE role. As far as IM's... the same would apply. Chat would default to the EVERYONE role, but with a box which can send only to a role specified. Again, not a database issue, a coding issue. If anything, doing so would relieve stress on the database, which is surely needed these days. Oh, and yeah, would sure love to have more than 25 groups. Minimum of 100, and would be smart to make the system dynamic and have no limit. With the increasing population of SL, the increasing number of sims, and the resultant increasing number of markets that require merchants to belong to a specific group to display... unlimited groups is really needed. Only if you want no security or privacy on the notices.
Say I send a notice to all the officers in my group, if the database does not maintain that the notice was only sent to officers, then anyone in the group can go into the Notice archives and look at the notice. And this you can somewhat do already, though cumbersome, as long as you have the ability to adjust role abilities you can turn off which roles receive notices before sending a notice out. Ah, now you mention something interesting I had not realized Harleen.
Apparently the ability to do this very thing already exists... it just needs to be implemented in an easier form. That should greatly reduce LL's job in putting this together. You're right, this is possible, but extremely cumbersome. To do so currently, we'd have to go to every role except the desired one and unclick the "receive notices" option, send the notice, then go back in and re-click it again. Too cumbersome to be of value. But since the system apparently can already do this, all they would need to do is add a single option box in the Notices area specifying which group the notice is to be sent to. You rock! I totally hadn't realized that fact. Linden Lab is already so close to being able to implement this feature it take about 15 minutes of coding to add this very much needed feature. : ) But for IMs... any insight to that one? If Calling Cards could be copied, that one would be easy... we'd just set up a Conference. But they're not copyable (for whaever reason)... so that option is out. Other ideas? You can copy Calling Cards as long as the person is online. Problem is you would have to possess the Calling Cards of everyone you needed to conference from the group. But you can currently create folders copy all the Calling Cards you want to conference together into the folder and then start a conference off that folder, the conference would even have the name of the folder.
While it might be a nice to have feature, I don't see a critical priority (crashes,content loss, significant memory leaks, greatly reduced performance, etc) and I think a higher priority item would be to increase the number of group memberships. At that point, you could create separate groups if you need that much communication privacy between roles. Even if you use your cumbersome workaround to send the notice to select people, the notice is still posted and others can read it. If they can't increase the number of groups beyond 25, you certainly can't expect to have firewalled roles within the group.
I disagree markbyron. Communications are just as important to SL as any other system function. During the past 7 months, the paid membership of Second Life has dropped 7%. That's 1% a month, which is statistically alarming. That loss is due to many things: poor performance, lag, lost inventory... and I would include in that list lack of proper communications that would allow groups to function as they need to function.
Yes, adding more groups would be great. 25 groups is woefully inadequate for a system now boasting over 20,000 sims. Linden Lab has pushed growth to the extreme... and failed to keep up with that growth. We now have far more groups on SL, far more lands, and not anywhere near enough groups. We told them we needed 200 groups when they went from 15 to 25 and they didn't listen. So now where does that put the system? Failure to provide adequate communication systems just adds to the list of serious problems with SL that is going to give competitive companies the leverage they need to pull even more people away from Second Life. A dozen new VR worlds are slated to be released by December, and over three dozen by the end of 2009. So I would call this matter critical. Linden Lab has no more time to pussyfoot around with eye candy and toys. We need useful features that are going to contribute to keeping this system alive. Otherwise that 1% a month may turn to 2%... 5%...10% as VR alternatives become more plentiful. As a founder of one of the largest fantasy groups on SL, I know that we either need more groups, or IMs / notecards specific to roles, one or the two. I believe this matter is critical to the continued function of Second Life. The more needed items LL doesn't offer its customers... the more is left open to the competition. An incredible amount of time was spent on Windlight, in-world videos and voice... time that could have been spent on far more needed things. Increased groups / messaging ability is one of those vital things. (Speaking of which it would be really nice if IMs and group notices actually worked). I also agree that this would be a great feature to allow group owners to effectively communicate with smaller targeted portions of a group in so doing eliminating the need for multiple groups for some applications. This would be good for businesses that currently require 2 or more groups, usually a customer group, and employee group. These could be merged into one allowing IM and Notices to be sent only to the Employee role, and likewise to more specific roles, say for a club setting, the DJ role, Host role or Manager role, etc, this could likewise useful to other businesses with staff as well.
Another useful addition would be permissions to post to IM or send Notices specific roles as well. I totally agree with eren padar that this should be added.
I support and encourage all to vote for it! |
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New Feature
Reopened
Normal
Chat and NOTICE ability to specific ROLES within groups
